Transport and quirks

A couple days ago I was walking across Rinja Park, near the center of Tirana, as a shortcut from the luncheon I attended, while on the way to the post office. The paths in the city’s parks have a fair number of benches that are used a lot by elderly people during the daily walks, and by a couple of hobos that from time to time can be seen lying down on them.

During the above walk my eye caught an interesting occurrence. A young outdoor vendor that was displaying a variety of junk for sale, was playing an interesting trick on passersby. He was placing a cell phone on the ground, and strategically located it underneath a bench. Then, from a distance, he would ring that phone to attract attention, and when a person instinctively would bend down to pick up the unit, he would quickly retrieve it via a long and extremely thin wire, invisible at first sight. I wonder whether this apparent joke was just to pass the time or whether it had a more hidden agenda!

Another quirky episode happened to me another day when I decided to take a local bus instead of walking or taxing to my destination.

Until just a couple years ago, it wasn’t easy to travel within or outside of the city with public transport. Private taxis and vans were available in strategic places, and at all hours, but they were old and not very clean. Now Tirana can show off many taxi stands, modern buses, with 9 lines within the city, and long distance routes to the rest of Albania and bordering countries such as Kosova, and Macedonia. Rather new to this capital are also very modern bus shelters with seats that have nothing to envy from the ones in NY City!

The fare in Tirana is 20 leks (~ 20 cents) for any ride, short or long, to any place within the city, while a normal taxi ride ranges between 300 to 400 leks. I have made a great use of the latter over the past years to avoid inhaling the large amount of dust and pollution of this city while walking.

BTW, the number of street lights have proliferated across town, at major intersections, and both pedestrians and vehicles are getting better at navigating the traffic, which is still, however, pretty chaotic and dangerous. There is also still no specific system in boarding or leaving the buses, although some doors are clearly marked “entry” or “exit”, and the ticket agent on board roams around from front to back and vice versa to get the fares.

To get back at what happened to me the other day, I handed the ticket agent my 20 lek coin, and he gave me back 10 leks. Instead of giving me a ticket in return, he requested that I pay again, totally oblivious of what he just did. Rather than having an argument that I couldn’t sustain in Albanian, I dished out another 20 leks, but let him know that what he did was incorrect! A bit surprised, but disregarding my remark, he proceeded to collect more fares, thinking that I must have been a crazy tourist. I, however, was experiencing another case of ‘non concentration on the job’ that becomes more frequent in today’s world everywhere.